Platelets are anucleate bone marrow-derived blood cells that protect injured mammals from blood loss by adhering to sites of a vascular injury and by promoting the formation of plasma fibrin clots. Humans depleted of circulating platelets by bone marrow failure suffer from life threatening spontaneous bleeding. Less severe deficiencies of platelets, such as thrombopenia, contribute to bleeding complications following trauma and surgery.
A major advance in medical care over a half-century ago was the development of techniques for platelet isolation and transfusion. However, unlike other transplantable tissues, refrigeration is deleterious to platelets. Accordingly, the current standard method for platelet storage is to hold the platelets in a bag at room temperature with constant shaking. However, this method is limited to five days of storage time. Thus, there is an ongoing unmet need for methods of increasing platelet storage time. The present invention meets this need.